Muslims agree it was wrong to silence Mozart opera

German opera chiefs who cancelled a Mozart opera for fear of offending Muslims were hit by a furious backlash yesterday.

The country's leader Angela Merkel condemned the decision as 'self-censorship out of fear' - and even Muslim leaders apparently agreed the show should be reinstated.

At a summit of religious leaders and security chiefs, the two sides decided they may go to see the show together, according to interior minister Wolfgang Schaeuble.

Last night pressure was on Berlin's Deutsche Oper to reverse its decision to cancel the production of Idomeneo. The company was said to be monitoring developments. Deutsche Oper announced on Tuesday that it had scrapped its staging of the opera because of a scene in which the severed head of the prophet Mohammed rolls on to the stage.

The depiction posed an 'incalculable security risk' for the theatre, they said, and four performances planned for November were replaced by The Marriage of Figaro and La Traviata.

The company clearly feared the kind of violent outbursts triggered earlier this month when the Pope quoted a medieval writer's view of Islam as 'evil and inhuman'.

His words led to worldwide protests and a nun was shot dead in Somalia. Similarly last year cartoons of Mohammed in a Danish newspaper caused violent Muslim protests around the world.

Deutsche Oper had been advised by police that the production could be inflammatory. But its decision to cancel outraged Germany's artistic and cultural elite and touched off a row which reached the highest echelons of government.

'I think the cancellation was a mistake,' said Chancellor Merkel. 'I think self-censorship does not help us against people who want to practise violence in the name of Islam. It makes no sense to retreat.'

The controversy is over a scene in the epilogue, where Idomeneo, the king of Crete, comes on stage with a bloody sack in his hand. He pulls the heads of Poseidon, Jesus, Buddha and Mohammed out of the sack and places them triumphantly on four chairs.

Mozart's opera, premiered in 1781, addresses human resistance to making sacrifices to the gods, but the controversial scene is a departure from the original and is the interpretation of the Berlin production's director, Hans Neuenfels.

The timing of yesterday's meeting between politicians and leaders of the country's 3million Muslims was particularly opportune.

Organised with a more general agenda of bringing Muslims and Christians closer together, it found itself debating a hotly topical issue.

Mr Schaeuble said there had been differences of opinion at the summit, which was intended 'to achieve results, not exchange pleasantries'. But he said the one thing participants agreed on was

the opera cancellation should be reversed.

His interpretation of Muslim feeling, however, appeared at odds with a statement from the leader of Germany's Islamic Council, who welcomed the cancellation of the opera saying it 'could certainly offend Muslims'.

Integration has become a priority for the German government as concern grows about Islamic radicalisation across Europe and the emergence of an underclass of disillusioned young Muslims, mainly Turks, in Germany.

Organisers of the summit were not available to comment on reports that all participants had been invited to a snack after the meeting, even though it is Ramadan, when Muslims fast from dawn to dusk.